1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an electrophotographic printer that uses continuous paper as the printing medium
2. Description of the Background Art
In conventional electrophotographic printers which use continuous paper, upon completion of a prescribed printing operation, a monitoring interval is interposed before proceeding to the next printing operation. During the monitoring interval, it is determined whether or not the next set of printing data is ready Also, during this time interval, the speed of rotation of a light-sensitive drum, of a paper transport drive roller, and of a paper ejecting roller, all of which are associated with the printer, either stays the same as it was during the printing operation or the rotation is completely halted.
Drawbacks of such conventional printer arrangements are that paper is either wasted when the feeding thereof is continued during the monitoring interval, or is caused to be scorched by the heat generated at the printing section in the event that the feeding of the paper is halted while awaiting the next set of printing data. Also, the processing speed of the system is slowed because a standby period is needed to allow the speeds of the various rotatable elements to stabilize when feeding of the paper is halted and then restarted.